Synesthesia 1/? (NC-17)(Horrible/Hammer/Penny)(Horrible/Snow One Sided)
Title: Synesthesia
Part: 1/?
By: Lilithisbitter
Rating: NC-17 (Lemon/Disturbing Themes/Darkfic)
Word Count: 3,000+
Pairing: Horrible/Penny/Hammer, Horrible/Snow (One-sided)
Spoiler: For All Three Acts of Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Comic Book Backstory Not Used
Summary: One part continuation, one part alternate universe, shake and stir. A bounced Wonderflonium accident disrupts events in not one but two parallel timelines and forces Billy to pony up to his inner demons.
I. The Reign of Dr. Horrible
The main problem with immortality was it sucked. Actually suck was too broad a term for an evil genius turned ruler of Australia from the comforts of his lab in LA. Irritating tended to cover the idea of the irritating points of immortality and oh god was that redundant. Okay, that was too broad as well.
Problem one… the general name for the agelessness that plagued or blessed certain people in the world was stupid. Stopped Clock. It made you sound like you had died like that dog Burt Reynolds had played in All Dogs Go To Heaven.
Problem two… you didn’t really want to change all that much. Comfort was comfort. For example… he still kept a blog. To insure that it was still watched, he gave orders that everyone in Australia should watch it. It didn’t take much prodding… apparently the nation had a fondness for blond, blue-eyed doctors even if they weren’t always MDs. The Bad Doctor also kept his love/addiction of Red Bull, easier now that he could actually afford them.
Okay…
Dr. Horrible squinted past his goggles; his eyes feeling like someone had poured a quart of sand into them. His list of reasons why immortality sucked and rocked was barely coming along, probably due to the fact that welder’s goggles were meant for welding and not anything else. “You left in your contacts,” the tank of liquid bubbled out. Even with his powers of moist so out of control that he could no longer keep in solid form, he was a good chatting moisture buddy. Sure, most of his other henchmen said that Rudolph “Moist” Mistovich had been dead for several hundred years because he just wasn’t possessing of a Stopped Clocked gene, but Dr. Horrible was pretty sure that his main wingman since he was a kid would be there with him.
“Thanks, Moist,” Dr. Horrible said, pulling his goggles off and laying them to the side near his ever growing toothpick sculpture of the Sydney Opera House. It was very cathartic. When he was finally done, he planned to put down a few action figures and play stomp the Hammer for a lark.
He quickly scribbled down reason three: “Because I’ve gotten way too addicted to toothpick sculptures.” before popping out his contact lenses and blinking in a few eye drops.
“No prob,” the henchman turned puddle said. “But you did the same thing last time too, so I think I recognize the patterns.”
Dr. Horrible shoved his glasses up his nose and turned his attention back to his list. Moist fell silent again, there was no need talk and he was aware that the Doc wanted utter silence while thinking. A brief giggle escaped his lips. He must be really doing well at this mad science thing if he was thinking of himself in the third person. Before it was just science with a touch of evil, now it was insanity… go him.
Problem four… Hammer, Corporate Cordless Drill was a Stopped Clock that was never right. Even if he had gotten the nerve to shoot his Death Ray (capitals needed), the man would have stayed dead for half a year at most while several alternate versions of him ran around, some clones, some wannabes, and some androids before the man popped out of the air, hair and teeth as perfect as ever. The league would find it hilarious and he would fume and try to kill them all again. That would fail and he would end up digging himself out of the ground a year later, hair plastered to his scalp with a visit to the evil dentists with their dental beams to grow back his missing teeth in order… again. Hammer liked to aim for the mouth when he wasn’t dealing out boots to the crotch or trying to give you the wedgie from hell. Still, dental beams were less humiliating than dentures.
The door creaked open as Dr. Horrible spun around; the first thing he could grab, a laser pointer aimed at one of his many servants. “W-w-w-h-a-t?” Damn stutter never really went away and popped its annoying head up every now and then. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”
It was the current lackey to hold the honored title of go-fer. “Your mail… plus one challenge letter… don’t kill me.”
“Yes…” In a deadpan voice. “If you don’t leave I will melt your corneas with my handheld death beam.” He didn’t feel like killing, blood still made him faint, and nobody remembered the villains that killed by the truckload, big whoop. Mostly it was because no one was alive to spread the word that you were amazing. “Tch, tch… go.”
As soon as his go-fer went-fer (went-fer, he cracked himself up) areas where there weren’t evil scientists, he cracked the seal on the envelope. It was time to do some serious blogging.
---
Dr. Horrible’s Evil Lab: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Hello and welcome to my blog… which all of you have been watching willingly which is nice… I mean, sure I am forcing the entire country of Australia to view my brilliance, but the rest you really didn’t have to and that makes it special.
I’ll be on hiatus for the next two weeks… experiments to run, business trip. No… no… I’m not telling you, it’s none of your business of where I go on my… business… trip.
So… evil is evil as usual. My koala controlling ray should be up and running by the end of the month if my shipments of unobtainium and selenium have arrived. I know that several of you have written in criticizing my choice in PK energy stabilizers. Look, if it’s good enough for Gozer, it’s good enough for me. To prove my point in your criticizing criticism, I’ll quote from BlackAdder234. For best the effect I’m going to use this high-pitched whiny voice. Ahem.
“Dear Doctor Horrible… I do believe that you have made a terrible blunder. Proper mind control is an art. A tin foil hat in a few seconds can defeat your foolish attempts to mind control koalas. If you wanted real results you would actually break down and kill someone.”
Ahem, back to my normal voice. And beyond this point… the letter is pointless masturbation as the guy tugs at his microdick in a useless attempt at wit… boofuckinghoo.
You haven’t had my training in mad science, Blackadder234 at hot mail dot com. Hell, you couldn’t get the distinction that numbers 1 through 233 had. I’ve been doing this for three hundred years. I conquered Australia! Next year New Zealand! I know what I’m doing. Hullo! I’m Dr. Horrible, PhD in Horribleness. I’m here to make the world quake with fear. If you weren’t aware of the fact of how large and in charge I am, maybe you should go back to the history books, look up me… or better yet… the dictionary… my picture, next to the word evil. I earned it through years of being a dork, joke, and failure. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY? I’D SHOOT YOU, EXCEPT YOU ALL ARE A WASTE OF THE EXPLODIUM IT TAKES TO POWER THE DEATH RAY!
Errr… anyway, let’s see you put the helmets on the koalas. Those things are cute kill machines. You’ll be in utter agony, but not me, I’ll be out of range with my lah-zer. I even drew a picture. This is you… screaming like a girl. “Oh, these Koalas are eating my guts.” This is me laughing. Mwuahaha. Okay… moving on. I like this picture; this could be on the new national clothing I’ll force you all to wear.
Our next e-mail comes from HorribleFanDownUnder and they write, “Doctor Horrible… what is up with your two different colored lab coats? My friends and I think that they are a gauge of your level of evil. Also you have dreamy blue eyes.”
Well, no, they aren’t. It would be really super nifty if they were. The ELE requires you to have a formal version of your costume. And lemme tell you some of the informal versions of the ELE’s costumes come down to cardboard and duct tape… coughSnakeBitecough. Right now I’m wearing my informal white working lab coat, which is meant for lab work mainly and the occasional heist… actually don’t remember the last time I did a heist. It’s lightweight, plastic buttons; it’s got my symbol in red and green on this pocket here. On the hanger over there are my crimson formals… you can see the symbol is in gold and silver thread for a better pop out and the buttons are mother of pearl I am told the by the person that made it. The thing is in a heavier weight of fabric and I’m quite fond of it. And… you like my eyes? Really? A few more good comments and you guys might get your healthcare system back. And maybe it won’t suck as bad as the old one.
Challenge letter today. You can tell because of the official envelope. Ah, balls… of all people to get a Stopped Clock… our oooooold friend… Johnny Snow. Johnny writes… er… you know… I can’t read this on air, kids may hear this. I just-
---
Dr. Horrible turned off the web cam in a hurry. He was pretty sure his face was as red as a beat. His eyes rescanned the page. The bastard was coming close to beating Captain Hammer as Nemesis. For now he was just nemesis with a lower case n.
“Dear Dr. Horrible,
I’m not going to be blunt or tipsy-toey about this anymore. When I say I am your nemesis, I mean you have a nice ass. I first noticed it when Captain Hammer was giving you that atomic wedgie. I knew then that we were destined to meet as only true nemeses can meet… in the battlefield of the bedroom and in public if you were that kind of man… I’m always flexible. I know for a fact that you are.
I’m sure I can bust down your evil empire in no time if you don’t meet me at our destined meeting place at midnight tonight. Otherwise I might let it slip that you’re into… well… enjoying your flexibility. You know what I’m talking about. I can spell it out if you don’t get it.
a-u-t-o-f-e-l-l-a-t-i-o
You’re limber for someone your age. I’ll be in the park in my parka. If I ask nicely will you show up in only your goggles?
See you at midnight,
Johnny Snow”
His gloved hands crumpled the page. “I’m sure every guy tries that at least once.”
“Only if they’ve taken yoga,” Moist bubbled and then apparently decided to change the subject. “Good post, I’m sure you’ll get more positive ratings with the glasses on.”
Dr. Horrible leaned back in the chair and folded his hands under his chin. “They would give me positive feedback anyway… anyone who doesn’t in Australia gets positive feedback if you know what I mean.” He giggled. He had been told his giggle was particularly cute and evil at the same time, just like a basket full of Doberman puppies.
“That’s evil.”
“Thank you, Moist.” It felt a little odd to say that. He was a good person. Wasn’t he?
“No, you aren’t,” one of the many voices in the back of his head nagged at him. He ignored it and continued pondering.
Johnny Snow mancrushing him? That did explain a lot. Like the packages of exotic chocolates and the constant demands to change his costume to something more revealing. He could show up at midnight to finally kick Snow’s be-parka-clad ass. Let him know that no one got away with black mailing Dr. Horrible. No one. “No one!”
Most was silent for once. If Dr. Horrible were sane, rational, and thinking of himself as Billy, he would have realized he had no need for Moist’s commentary at the moment. The again, if he were sane, he would have also been taking his prescription meds and the back of his mind would be a lot quieter. He spent the rest of the afternoon constructing an evil couch fort around the giant armchair version he honestly lost count after version ten. Once that was done, he pulled himself inside with a can of Red Bull and a fluffernutter sandwich. “Tell me when it’s eleven,” he gruffly ordered a minion before pulling his front pillow door shut.
It was six thirty pm.
Usually, by this time he would be in the kitchen, chopping up piles of various vegetables, herbs, and spices for dinner, but the whole thing with Johnny Snow had seriously upset him. Oh sure, he could get a minion to cook him dinner, but they didn’t know how to do it. Seriously, he was the only one who could do it right. Anyone else would mess it up, chop up them up too thin or too thick, add them at the wrong or at the wrong amount.
His old psychiatrist, back when he still thought of himself as Billy, said he had adolescent-onset schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Horrible could still remember it as if it were yesterday.
---
“Bill…” “
It’s D-d-doctor C-c-crandrall actually.”
“If you don’t take your medication, you may fall victim to your own psychosis.”
“I c-can keep it under control. I w-work as a t-t-teaching assistant, my buddy Moist let me move after m-my landlord k-kicked me out f-for keeping a ferret……….. I do okay.”
“Doing okay… you said that with some reluctance. I really think you need to start with these course of meds for the good of your sanity.”
---
Hhmph, what did he know?
“Maybe a lot more than you knew?” came a voice from the back of his mind.
“I never wanted you to be this,” Penny added and he could almost visualize her, blood trickling out of the corners of her mouth, oozing from her nose and around the edge from where the twisted remains of his death ray bit deep into her chest. “You aren’t the infernal man you want to be, Billy-buddy,” she adds, her familiar nickname for him sing-songy on her lips and in his mind. “They’ve just beaten it into you.”
Oh but I am.
Light seeped into his couch fort through the cracks and shone off his glasses and the motes of dust in the air. He stared at them for the longest time and almost allowed himself to feel again. The first time he had betrayed the league was in 2012. After Professor Normal had patched up the wounds that were still there when he clawed his way from his own grave, he was begging for forgiveness, begging to prove his evil worth. He was thankful he didn’t remember the next time or the next or the… once a villain always villain. He had paid a pretty Penny after all.
Part of him hates that he has an entire country suffering on his whim. This year, their taxes are high, they have no health care, music is illegal, and all must bow to him. But the equation is simple. He hates pain. They suffer so he doesn’t.
---
Professor Normal had called him a wonder of nature. “I am not a Stopped Clock, hence I must become a cyborg,” he had explained as if Dr. Horrible was too stupid to get it. He’s not. He has a 195 IQ after all.
Dr. Horrible had been unable to answer at the time, every nerve alive with agony. He had gone blind in one eye and he was fast on his way to biting off his lower lip with the teeth he had left. And the worst part was the nudity. The vulnerability of it all that made his nipples stand to attention and his privates crawl inside his body. Normal ignored this, the asexual cyborg freak.
Normal injected another agent into his thigh, this one also burned like red hot hell. “I used read comic books you know. And I wondered… why didn’t Superman and Lex Luthor ever age? Times went by but they were always the same age. Sometimes they died… you remember Death of Superman right? But they always sprang back. And I’m pretty sure you will too. We’ll just get your face back to pretty little you. One dental beam later… good as new.”
Dr. Horrible tried to work up the strength to spit in Normal’s mostly metal face. All that prompted was a coughing fit and another of his molars breaking free from his gum and his mouth flooded with coppery hot blood. Oh just kill me please, flitted through his mind.
Normal was still prattling on. In his pain, Horrible had missed a good portion of it. It really didn’t matter. “I realized that everyone with this gene had a built an age where their aging all together stopped. After that, they would just pop back to life when you killed them, never aging, a freeze frame in time… a Stopped Clock. Which is funny… that’s what the gene is called. For you… this seemed to be about eight months past your 32nd birthday. You look good… not at the moment…” Normal amended when Dr. Horrible did his best glare. “You look 28 at the most. And you’ll look same age when you wake up.”
Hard to breath now.
Hard to come up with a glare.
Unsurprising when your lungs were filling up with your blood and various other fluids.
“Good night, Dr. Horrible. You can tell us that you’re sorry in a year.”
And fade to black-
---
The dust motes float and fall, rise and dance.
In the back of his mind, he still thought of himself as Billy. The man who had everything he wanted… fame and fortune… could finally have what he always wanted… for people to leave him alone. It was one of the reasons he bought the house.
The house was huge and lonely.
Like his mind.
Dark, full of cobwebs, and lost and lonely voices.
“I’m lonely,” the Billy in the back of his mind confessed.
Normally this voice was the softest of them all, but in the couch fort, it was the loudest.
Dr. Horrible thought about this for a long while. A ghost of a tear traced down his face. “Me too, kid. Me too.”
…to be continued
Part: 1/?
By: Lilithisbitter
Rating: NC-17 (Lemon/Disturbing Themes/Darkfic)
Word Count: 3,000+
Pairing: Horrible/Penny/Hammer, Horrible/Snow (One-sided)
Spoiler: For All Three Acts of Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, Comic Book Backstory Not Used
Summary: One part continuation, one part alternate universe, shake and stir. A bounced Wonderflonium accident disrupts events in not one but two parallel timelines and forces Billy to pony up to his inner demons.
I. The Reign of Dr. Horrible
The main problem with immortality was it sucked. Actually suck was too broad a term for an evil genius turned ruler of Australia from the comforts of his lab in LA. Irritating tended to cover the idea of the irritating points of immortality and oh god was that redundant. Okay, that was too broad as well.
Problem one… the general name for the agelessness that plagued or blessed certain people in the world was stupid. Stopped Clock. It made you sound like you had died like that dog Burt Reynolds had played in All Dogs Go To Heaven.
Problem two… you didn’t really want to change all that much. Comfort was comfort. For example… he still kept a blog. To insure that it was still watched, he gave orders that everyone in Australia should watch it. It didn’t take much prodding… apparently the nation had a fondness for blond, blue-eyed doctors even if they weren’t always MDs. The Bad Doctor also kept his love/addiction of Red Bull, easier now that he could actually afford them.
Okay…
Dr. Horrible squinted past his goggles; his eyes feeling like someone had poured a quart of sand into them. His list of reasons why immortality sucked and rocked was barely coming along, probably due to the fact that welder’s goggles were meant for welding and not anything else. “You left in your contacts,” the tank of liquid bubbled out. Even with his powers of moist so out of control that he could no longer keep in solid form, he was a good chatting moisture buddy. Sure, most of his other henchmen said that Rudolph “Moist” Mistovich had been dead for several hundred years because he just wasn’t possessing of a Stopped Clocked gene, but Dr. Horrible was pretty sure that his main wingman since he was a kid would be there with him.
“Thanks, Moist,” Dr. Horrible said, pulling his goggles off and laying them to the side near his ever growing toothpick sculpture of the Sydney Opera House. It was very cathartic. When he was finally done, he planned to put down a few action figures and play stomp the Hammer for a lark.
He quickly scribbled down reason three: “Because I’ve gotten way too addicted to toothpick sculptures.” before popping out his contact lenses and blinking in a few eye drops.
“No prob,” the henchman turned puddle said. “But you did the same thing last time too, so I think I recognize the patterns.”
Dr. Horrible shoved his glasses up his nose and turned his attention back to his list. Moist fell silent again, there was no need talk and he was aware that the Doc wanted utter silence while thinking. A brief giggle escaped his lips. He must be really doing well at this mad science thing if he was thinking of himself in the third person. Before it was just science with a touch of evil, now it was insanity… go him.
Problem four… Hammer, Corporate Cordless Drill was a Stopped Clock that was never right. Even if he had gotten the nerve to shoot his Death Ray (capitals needed), the man would have stayed dead for half a year at most while several alternate versions of him ran around, some clones, some wannabes, and some androids before the man popped out of the air, hair and teeth as perfect as ever. The league would find it hilarious and he would fume and try to kill them all again. That would fail and he would end up digging himself out of the ground a year later, hair plastered to his scalp with a visit to the evil dentists with their dental beams to grow back his missing teeth in order… again. Hammer liked to aim for the mouth when he wasn’t dealing out boots to the crotch or trying to give you the wedgie from hell. Still, dental beams were less humiliating than dentures.
The door creaked open as Dr. Horrible spun around; the first thing he could grab, a laser pointer aimed at one of his many servants. “W-w-w-h-a-t?” Damn stutter never really went away and popped its annoying head up every now and then. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”
It was the current lackey to hold the honored title of go-fer. “Your mail… plus one challenge letter… don’t kill me.”
“Yes…” In a deadpan voice. “If you don’t leave I will melt your corneas with my handheld death beam.” He didn’t feel like killing, blood still made him faint, and nobody remembered the villains that killed by the truckload, big whoop. Mostly it was because no one was alive to spread the word that you were amazing. “Tch, tch… go.”
As soon as his go-fer went-fer (went-fer, he cracked himself up) areas where there weren’t evil scientists, he cracked the seal on the envelope. It was time to do some serious blogging.
---
Dr. Horrible’s Evil Lab: The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Hello and welcome to my blog… which all of you have been watching willingly which is nice… I mean, sure I am forcing the entire country of Australia to view my brilliance, but the rest you really didn’t have to and that makes it special.
I’ll be on hiatus for the next two weeks… experiments to run, business trip. No… no… I’m not telling you, it’s none of your business of where I go on my… business… trip.
So… evil is evil as usual. My koala controlling ray should be up and running by the end of the month if my shipments of unobtainium and selenium have arrived. I know that several of you have written in criticizing my choice in PK energy stabilizers. Look, if it’s good enough for Gozer, it’s good enough for me. To prove my point in your criticizing criticism, I’ll quote from BlackAdder234. For best the effect I’m going to use this high-pitched whiny voice. Ahem.
“Dear Doctor Horrible… I do believe that you have made a terrible blunder. Proper mind control is an art. A tin foil hat in a few seconds can defeat your foolish attempts to mind control koalas. If you wanted real results you would actually break down and kill someone.”
Ahem, back to my normal voice. And beyond this point… the letter is pointless masturbation as the guy tugs at his microdick in a useless attempt at wit… boofuckinghoo.
You haven’t had my training in mad science, Blackadder234 at hot mail dot com. Hell, you couldn’t get the distinction that numbers 1 through 233 had. I’ve been doing this for three hundred years. I conquered Australia! Next year New Zealand! I know what I’m doing. Hullo! I’m Dr. Horrible, PhD in Horribleness. I’m here to make the world quake with fear. If you weren’t aware of the fact of how large and in charge I am, maybe you should go back to the history books, look up me… or better yet… the dictionary… my picture, next to the word evil. I earned it through years of being a dork, joke, and failure. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY? I’D SHOOT YOU, EXCEPT YOU ALL ARE A WASTE OF THE EXPLODIUM IT TAKES TO POWER THE DEATH RAY!
Errr… anyway, let’s see you put the helmets on the koalas. Those things are cute kill machines. You’ll be in utter agony, but not me, I’ll be out of range with my lah-zer. I even drew a picture. This is you… screaming like a girl. “Oh, these Koalas are eating my guts.” This is me laughing. Mwuahaha. Okay… moving on. I like this picture; this could be on the new national clothing I’ll force you all to wear.
Our next e-mail comes from HorribleFanDownUnder and they write, “Doctor Horrible… what is up with your two different colored lab coats? My friends and I think that they are a gauge of your level of evil. Also you have dreamy blue eyes.”
Well, no, they aren’t. It would be really super nifty if they were. The ELE requires you to have a formal version of your costume. And lemme tell you some of the informal versions of the ELE’s costumes come down to cardboard and duct tape… coughSnakeBitecough. Right now I’m wearing my informal white working lab coat, which is meant for lab work mainly and the occasional heist… actually don’t remember the last time I did a heist. It’s lightweight, plastic buttons; it’s got my symbol in red and green on this pocket here. On the hanger over there are my crimson formals… you can see the symbol is in gold and silver thread for a better pop out and the buttons are mother of pearl I am told the by the person that made it. The thing is in a heavier weight of fabric and I’m quite fond of it. And… you like my eyes? Really? A few more good comments and you guys might get your healthcare system back. And maybe it won’t suck as bad as the old one.
Challenge letter today. You can tell because of the official envelope. Ah, balls… of all people to get a Stopped Clock… our oooooold friend… Johnny Snow. Johnny writes… er… you know… I can’t read this on air, kids may hear this. I just-
---
Dr. Horrible turned off the web cam in a hurry. He was pretty sure his face was as red as a beat. His eyes rescanned the page. The bastard was coming close to beating Captain Hammer as Nemesis. For now he was just nemesis with a lower case n.
“Dear Dr. Horrible,
I’m not going to be blunt or tipsy-toey about this anymore. When I say I am your nemesis, I mean you have a nice ass. I first noticed it when Captain Hammer was giving you that atomic wedgie. I knew then that we were destined to meet as only true nemeses can meet… in the battlefield of the bedroom and in public if you were that kind of man… I’m always flexible. I know for a fact that you are.
I’m sure I can bust down your evil empire in no time if you don’t meet me at our destined meeting place at midnight tonight. Otherwise I might let it slip that you’re into… well… enjoying your flexibility. You know what I’m talking about. I can spell it out if you don’t get it.
a-u-t-o-f-e-l-l-a-t-i-o
You’re limber for someone your age. I’ll be in the park in my parka. If I ask nicely will you show up in only your goggles?
See you at midnight,
Johnny Snow”
His gloved hands crumpled the page. “I’m sure every guy tries that at least once.”
“Only if they’ve taken yoga,” Moist bubbled and then apparently decided to change the subject. “Good post, I’m sure you’ll get more positive ratings with the glasses on.”
Dr. Horrible leaned back in the chair and folded his hands under his chin. “They would give me positive feedback anyway… anyone who doesn’t in Australia gets positive feedback if you know what I mean.” He giggled. He had been told his giggle was particularly cute and evil at the same time, just like a basket full of Doberman puppies.
“That’s evil.”
“Thank you, Moist.” It felt a little odd to say that. He was a good person. Wasn’t he?
“No, you aren’t,” one of the many voices in the back of his head nagged at him. He ignored it and continued pondering.
Johnny Snow mancrushing him? That did explain a lot. Like the packages of exotic chocolates and the constant demands to change his costume to something more revealing. He could show up at midnight to finally kick Snow’s be-parka-clad ass. Let him know that no one got away with black mailing Dr. Horrible. No one. “No one!”
Most was silent for once. If Dr. Horrible were sane, rational, and thinking of himself as Billy, he would have realized he had no need for Moist’s commentary at the moment. The again, if he were sane, he would have also been taking his prescription meds and the back of his mind would be a lot quieter. He spent the rest of the afternoon constructing an evil couch fort around the giant armchair version he honestly lost count after version ten. Once that was done, he pulled himself inside with a can of Red Bull and a fluffernutter sandwich. “Tell me when it’s eleven,” he gruffly ordered a minion before pulling his front pillow door shut.
It was six thirty pm.
Usually, by this time he would be in the kitchen, chopping up piles of various vegetables, herbs, and spices for dinner, but the whole thing with Johnny Snow had seriously upset him. Oh sure, he could get a minion to cook him dinner, but they didn’t know how to do it. Seriously, he was the only one who could do it right. Anyone else would mess it up, chop up them up too thin or too thick, add them at the wrong or at the wrong amount.
His old psychiatrist, back when he still thought of himself as Billy, said he had adolescent-onset schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Dr. Horrible could still remember it as if it were yesterday.
---
“Bill…” “
It’s D-d-doctor C-c-crandrall actually.”
“If you don’t take your medication, you may fall victim to your own psychosis.”
“I c-can keep it under control. I w-work as a t-t-teaching assistant, my buddy Moist let me move after m-my landlord k-kicked me out f-for keeping a ferret……….. I do okay.”
“Doing okay… you said that with some reluctance. I really think you need to start with these course of meds for the good of your sanity.”
---
Hhmph, what did he know?
“Maybe a lot more than you knew?” came a voice from the back of his mind.
“I never wanted you to be this,” Penny added and he could almost visualize her, blood trickling out of the corners of her mouth, oozing from her nose and around the edge from where the twisted remains of his death ray bit deep into her chest. “You aren’t the infernal man you want to be, Billy-buddy,” she adds, her familiar nickname for him sing-songy on her lips and in his mind. “They’ve just beaten it into you.”
Oh but I am.
Light seeped into his couch fort through the cracks and shone off his glasses and the motes of dust in the air. He stared at them for the longest time and almost allowed himself to feel again. The first time he had betrayed the league was in 2012. After Professor Normal had patched up the wounds that were still there when he clawed his way from his own grave, he was begging for forgiveness, begging to prove his evil worth. He was thankful he didn’t remember the next time or the next or the… once a villain always villain. He had paid a pretty Penny after all.
Part of him hates that he has an entire country suffering on his whim. This year, their taxes are high, they have no health care, music is illegal, and all must bow to him. But the equation is simple. He hates pain. They suffer so he doesn’t.
---
Professor Normal had called him a wonder of nature. “I am not a Stopped Clock, hence I must become a cyborg,” he had explained as if Dr. Horrible was too stupid to get it. He’s not. He has a 195 IQ after all.
Dr. Horrible had been unable to answer at the time, every nerve alive with agony. He had gone blind in one eye and he was fast on his way to biting off his lower lip with the teeth he had left. And the worst part was the nudity. The vulnerability of it all that made his nipples stand to attention and his privates crawl inside his body. Normal ignored this, the asexual cyborg freak.
Normal injected another agent into his thigh, this one also burned like red hot hell. “I used read comic books you know. And I wondered… why didn’t Superman and Lex Luthor ever age? Times went by but they were always the same age. Sometimes they died… you remember Death of Superman right? But they always sprang back. And I’m pretty sure you will too. We’ll just get your face back to pretty little you. One dental beam later… good as new.”
Dr. Horrible tried to work up the strength to spit in Normal’s mostly metal face. All that prompted was a coughing fit and another of his molars breaking free from his gum and his mouth flooded with coppery hot blood. Oh just kill me please, flitted through his mind.
Normal was still prattling on. In his pain, Horrible had missed a good portion of it. It really didn’t matter. “I realized that everyone with this gene had a built an age where their aging all together stopped. After that, they would just pop back to life when you killed them, never aging, a freeze frame in time… a Stopped Clock. Which is funny… that’s what the gene is called. For you… this seemed to be about eight months past your 32nd birthday. You look good… not at the moment…” Normal amended when Dr. Horrible did his best glare. “You look 28 at the most. And you’ll look same age when you wake up.”
Hard to breath now.
Hard to come up with a glare.
Unsurprising when your lungs were filling up with your blood and various other fluids.
“Good night, Dr. Horrible. You can tell us that you’re sorry in a year.”
And fade to black-
---
The dust motes float and fall, rise and dance.
In the back of his mind, he still thought of himself as Billy. The man who had everything he wanted… fame and fortune… could finally have what he always wanted… for people to leave him alone. It was one of the reasons he bought the house.
The house was huge and lonely.
Like his mind.
Dark, full of cobwebs, and lost and lonely voices.
“I’m lonely,” the Billy in the back of his mind confessed.
Normally this voice was the softest of them all, but in the couch fort, it was the loudest.
Dr. Horrible thought about this for a long while. A ghost of a tear traced down his face. “Me too, kid. Me too.”
…to be continued